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Updated: Mar 14, 2026

Generation of a Mouse Spontaneous Autoimmune Thyroiditis Model
Published on: March 17, 2023
Do Helper T Cell Subtypes in Lymphocytic Thyroiditis Play a Role in the Antitumor Effect?
Seok Woo Yang1, Seong-Ho Kang2, Kyung Rae Kim3
1Department of Medicine, Yonsei University Graduate School, Seoul, Korea.
Background:
Papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) is frequently accompanied by lymphocytic thyroiditis (LT). Some reports claim that Hashimoto's thyroiditis (the clinical form of LT) enhances the likelihood of PTC; however, others suggest that LT has antitumor activity. This study was aimed to find out the relationship between the patterns of helper T cell (Th) cytokines in thyroid tissue of PTC with or without LT and the clinicopathological manifestation of PTC.
Methods:
Fresh surgical samples of PTC with (13 cases) or without (10 cases) LT were used. The prognostic parameters (tumor size, extra-thyroidal extension of PTC, and lymph node metastasis) were analyzed. The mRNA levels of two subtypes of Th cytokines, Th1 (tumor necrosis factor α [TNF-α], interferon γ [IFN-γ ], and interleukin [IL] 2) and Th2 (IL-4 and IL-10), were analyzed. Because most PTC cases were microcarcinomas and recent cases without clinical follow-up, negative or faint p27 immunoreactivity was used as a surrogate marker for lymph node metastasis.
Results:
PTC with LT cases showed significantly higher expression of TNF-α (p = .043), IFN-γ (p < .010), IL-4 (p = .015) than those without LT cases. Although the data were not statistically significant, all analyzed cytokines (except for IL-4) were highly expressed in the cases with higher expression of p27 surrogate marker.
Conclusions:
These results indicate that mixed Th1 (TNF-α, IFN-γ , and IL-2) and Th2 (IL-10) immunity might play a role in the antitumor effect in terms of lymph node metastasis.
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